1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a drive apparatus for moving an object (driven object) in a desired direction.
2. Description of the Related Art
An example of this type of drive apparatus of the prior art is shown in FIG. 1. This drive apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 4-289043.
As shown in the drawing, the drive apparatus has a guiding mechanism in the form of two sets of linear motion rolling guide units 1. These linear motion rolling guide units 1 are composed of track rails 2, and sliders 3 which are guided by the track rails 2. Table 5 is attached to the sliders 3. Furthermore, although not shown in the drawing, a large number of rolling elements in the form of balls are arranged and contained to circulate freely within sliders 3. These balls roll along the tracks of track rails 2 while circulating along with movement of sliders 3.
Two rotary members in the form of pulleys 6 and 7 are arranged near both ends of the above-mentioned track rails 2, and one of the pulleys, pulley 7, is fit onto output shaft 8a of motor 8. Belt 9 is wrapped around both of the pulleys, and a portion of the belt 9 is coupled to the above-mentioned table 5. Namely, belt 9 is driven by forward and reverse rotation of motor 8, which moves table 5 in a reciprocating fashion.
The above-mentioned drive apparatus can be used to perform the following work.
Namely, one example of such work consists of the drilling of holes in a certain object using a drill. In this case, this work can be assumed to be performed following the procedure shown in FIG. 2.
In FIG. 2, reference numeral 10 indicates an area for performing drilling on a certain object (not shown), which is the target workpiece, using a processing apparatus not shown. In addition, reference numeral 11 indicates an area at which supply and collection of said object are performed. The target workpiece is installed on table 5 at area 11, carried to area 10 by movement of the table 5 and processed. When processing is completed, table 5 returns to area 11 and the target workpiece is removed from table 5 and collected.
In the case of attempting to improve the efficiency of processing work in the above-mentioned constitution, it can be considered to simply arrange, for example, two drive apparatuses as shown in FIG. 2 and operate these drive apparatuses in synchronization.
However, since a plurality of drive apparatuses are provided in this arrangement, there are the disadvantages of having to make available a large amount of installation space and associated increases in costs. In addition, mutually coordinating the operating timing of each drive apparatus must also be taken into consideration in order to efficiently proceed with the work. Since it is therefore necessary to provide a control circuit and so forth for this purpose, it is difficult to lower costs and reduce maintenance and so forth.